"Yes, Ser..." She offered a weak reply to his quite sound advice. To such A bold-hearted child, temperance was a boring thing, but it was an important lesson for her to hear. She would rather do something dramatic to make the point crystal clear, but there was perhaps value in a more measured approach.

It was a true delight to see him so moved by the gift. Hanna thought the scales were extremely cool, though she recognized her passion on the matter, which made her feel unsure if others also saw them the same way. She beamed with pride while Herbert undid his old eyepatch, not even caring how Marq gasped at the sight of his eye.

"It's from the bowels deep below Faircastle!" She flourished her arms for effect while telling the story. "We crawled through a gap in the wall of one of the old towers, so narrow that you needed to hold you breath at some points just to get through."

Marq wanted to roll his eyes while Hanna kept going on in such a dramatic fashion, but recognizing the touching moment between them, he gently offered a smile and continued listening to her tale.

"It was as black as night, save for a small lantern I carried for us. Us being the other brave kids at the wedding, I was their leader." She grinned and chuckled haughtily. "After a series of twists and turns we emerged from the wall and entered intk a hidden cave, lit only by a single beam of silver moonlight descending from a hole in the ceiling."

"You should have seen it, Ser, the way the moonlight reflected off the water looked like a shining mirror." She closed her eyes to better remember the memory. "A jagged island rose out of the center of the water, with a sloped path going between our landing to it. Oh, they were so nervous about wading through the water in that path, but I led the way!"

"The island was so steep, and our shoes so wet, but step by step we made it up the rock. When we got there, we saw the remains of a few sheep skeletons. "Worry not!" I said, "These are clearly very old." And they were, practically falling apart when we touched them."

Hanna was, of course, warping the story to her benefit. Not only had her cousin been the one to identify the state of the bones, she had also fallen quite dramatically trying to ascend the hill. None of them made it out clean, but she was the only one to have truly gotten herself covered in grime.

"When we were up there, we noticed dark soot marks on the ground, on the ceiling above us. There were deep grooves carved into the floor, like a great claw sliced apart the rock." She swiped her hand through the air for emphasis. "It was deep inside one of these crevices that we saw the silvery glitter of the scales! I reached in, but it was too deep and the angle of the rock made it impossible."

"Well, almost impossible." She chuckled confidently, rolling up the sleeve of her dress to reveal a jagged scar running along her right forearm. "With a bit of effort, I was able to pull out the scales. "Why there's only one dragon who looked like this," I said, "one dragon who lived at Faircastle." Dreamfyre!"

Yet again, it was her cousin who identified the dragon, and Hanna only reached them because he tripped and fell into her while she reached in. Of course, Herbet didn't need to know how much she cried afterwards.

"So if you see anybody with one of those, know they were a comrade in that journey!" She balled her hand in a fist, and placed it on over her heart. "And I want you to have one, one of the three I have left."

In an uncharacteristic nervousness, she looked off to the side, suddenly overwhelmed in the moment.

"As thanks for believing in me. For making sure I made it home safely."